We just snapped this shot of eleven of the thirteen ‘07-’08 McCarter interns for an ad announcing next year’s internship openings (it’ll run in the Me, Myself & I program, so keep an eye out for our smiling faces therein!). Which reminded me that it’s been a while since I last wrote about Life As An Intern. Mostly because I’ve been rather caught up in, well, Life As An Intern. As I mentioned in some of my previous posts, things can get pretty busy around the McCarter offices. But there are numerous learning opportunities, and lots of fun times to be had as well.

If you’re a regular blog reader, or if you’ve been clicking around on the shameless links to my previous posts scattered throughout this one, you’ve probably read plenty about my assorted tasks and experiences as a literary intern here at McCarter. But I thought I’d fill our curious blog readers in on some more general details about the overall internship process at our fair theater.

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Over the past week, the McCarter crew put in a TON of man- (and woman-) hours loading in the set of A Christmas Carol. During the year, the set sits in four 48-foot trailers that are parked outside of McCarter’s shop. Once a year the staff loads the whole thing into the Matthews Theatre, from the show deck (the floor) to Scrooge’s front door (which flies in from above). Before they try to load in this massive production, the crew gathers to watch a time-lapse video of a previous year’s load-in, and they refresh themselves on the order in which things need to be installed and the flow of the weekend.

The biggest pieces of the set for A Christmas Carol are Scrooge’s Bedroom and the Counting House, which doubles as Fezziwig’s Counting House in the past, and Scrooge’s Counting House in the present. During the brunt of the show, the two pieces rest far upstage (with just enough room behind them for an actor to cross from one side of the stage to the other), and are masked by other set pieces in front of them (like the London backdrop, or the front door). The counting house itself weighs 2 tons, although when it was originally built it weighed approximately 3 tons. Since that time, the crew has re-built the top half of it, to make it lighter.

The various moving set pieces of the show (including Scrooge’s Bedroom and the Counting House) are powered by a set of huge theatrical motors, each of which would cost around $35,000 if we were purchasing them new today. The motors control steel wires, which run underneath the show deck and pull the set pieces along their tracks. The motors are all controlled from a booth above the stage, which we call the “Lincoln Booth” (I’ll let you guess why). The Counting House sits on 40 wheels, each of which costs around $150. You can see how it all adds up.

The upstage side of both the Counting House and Scrooge’s Bedroom is filled with all sorts of electronics, pulleys, and wires, which variously control all of the “practical lights” (lights that double as set dressing - like lamps or sconces) and also the various “magical” things that happen during A Christmas Carol (like doors flying open, people appearing and disappearing, and hats popping out of trunks). That’s your backstage tour of the day! More soon.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter

Some people just don’t understand the holiday season. McCarter’s Sound Department, however, really knows how to have a good time. Every week of A Christmas Carol, they go through about 208 AA batteries and 75 un-lubricated condoms. Sounds like a lot of fun, eh?

Okay, okay, it isn’t as dirty as it sounds. Turns out that those condoms and batteries are used for work-related purposes. During A Christmas Carol, the actors use microphones, which are hidden on their bodies, in their costumes, and under their wigs. The microphones are attached to wireless belt packs (which eat more batteries than you can imagine), and which are similarly hidden inside costumes. As I’m sure you know, sweat and electronics are not good friends, and condoms are still the best thing on the market for keeping liquids out of places that they don’t belong.

Each wireless transmitter is turned on about an hour prior to the show beginning, and stays on for the two hour performance.
By the end of the show, the batteries are at about 20% capacity, and can’t be used for another show. The batteries are tossed in a big bucket once they have been used, and are recycled at the University. The condoms are re-used until they break - which is exactly what you shouldn’t do when using condoms for more lascivious and salacious activities.

I like to imagine Bill, our Sound Engineer, walking into CVS and purchasing 75 un-lubricated condoms and 208 AA batteries. What do you imagine the clerks think he is up to?

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

The big news around here is that we’ve just figured out how to do e-mail blog subscriptions. If you’ve been reading the blog regularly, but would rather have it delivered daily via e-mail (like a newsletter), please fill out the form below. You’ll have to enter a few confirmation details, and also confirm you’re first e-mail, but then you’ll be all set.

Enjoy!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

The following post was written by a member of the Young Ensemble of A Christmas Carol, the team of 14 local actors between the ages of 6-13 who play all the childrens’ roles in McCarter’s annual production of A Christmas Carol:

Hey everybody, how we all doing? I was just looking at my previous “blog” and I noticed how much I said “cool.” Not that “cool” isn’t cool. But “cool” used repeatedly makes the cool factor of cool go down. Cool? So I decided to stop using cool. ‘K? Is that ‘K with you cuz if its not ‘K then I won’t, ‘K? Anyway, Tiny Tim just locked himself in the bathroom so I need to go. See you later, ‘K? Just kidding. Bye.

Posted by a member of the Young Ensemble of McCarter’s annual production of A Christmas Carol.

Photo by Rich Tepper

Today, back from a delicious and delightful Thanksgiving Holiday, I sat down at my desk and reflected about how far we are in the season, and how much we have done so far. As A Christmas Carol nears opening night (December 7 - I just got my tickets, did you?), we are reaching the halfway point in the season (3 mainstage shows down, 3 to go). Since July 1, we’ve had 137 total performances (61 of them were Theater performances) and we have 236 left to go. That doesn’t include all of our readings, workshops, and other events. Thus far, 57,256 tickets have been distributed (including my pair for A Christmas Carol).

1,430 patrons with disabilities have taken advantage of McCarter’s Access Program, and we are about to offer our first-ever open-captioned performance for our audience members with hearing impairments. By year’s end, we expect that number to triple. 2,183 students have been served by our Arts Education Program, but by year’s end we expect that number to top last year’s 32,829 students (19,985 of whom were from outside of Mercer County). So far this year, McCarter his distributed $28,279 worth of subsidized programs for underprivileged students and schools - last year’s grand total was $85,421 (providing 7,700 students with access to the arts that they would not have otherwise received).

And of course, McCarter Online is also going strong (you’re reading the blog, you know). Over 66,000 individuals have accessed the McCarter website this season, staying on the site for an average of 3 minutes and 45 seconds. The blog has received 20,414 page views, and readership has increased significantly over the last few months - in the last month, we averaged 251 page-views per day. That number doesn’t include those who subscribe to the blog via rss (which you can do on the left hand side of the page). We also have a new rss feed that lists all upcoming McCarter events. As Sondheim said: “And that is the state of the art.”

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre.

Here’s another installment of Thanksgiving Holiday weekend video posts. As I’m sure you read about on Theatremania, or Variety, or Playbill, Tyne Daly, Tony Award winning star of the hit TV show “Cagney & Lacey,” will play the Mother in McCarter’s production of Edward Albee’s new play, Me, Myself and I. Apparently the DVD of Season 1 of “Cagney & Lacey” was just released earlier this year - you can purchase it at the official site. To whet your appetite, I’ve got a clip of the opener below.

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

As part of our Thanksgiving weekend video series, here’s the trailer that Berkeley Rep created for their run of Argonautika (which is a McCarter co-production).

Okay. Not so much to say here except for: OMIGOD I CAN’T WAIT!!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

Happy Thanksgiving! To celebrate the beginning of the Holiday Season, I thought I’d share this great video from the indie pop–rock band GrooveLily’s holiday musical: Striking 12 (a musical adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson story “The Little Match Girl”). GrooveLily, as you recall, wrote the AWESOME music to McCarter’s recent production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. If you don’t have it yet, you can buy the Midsummer CD here. This video is from Striking 12, which you can catch at the Zipper Factory in NYC beginning December 27. The song is written by Rachel Sheinkin and GrooveLily members Brendan Milburn and Valerie Vigoda. It is performed by Valerie Vigoda (vocals, 6-string electric violin), Brendan Milburn (keyboard, backup vocals), and Gene Lewin (percussion).

There will be more GrooveLily/McCarter news soon. You heard it here first, folks! Enjoy the video. Happy Thanksgiving!

Share your comments by clicking on the “Comments” link below!

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre

The big news is in! We have a winner.

Kena N. Njoya is our first blog prize-winner! Kena has won 2 free tickets to Faith Prince’s late-nite cabaret concert for getting lots of correct answers on the Tartuffe Quiz. Although nobody got all 10 questions correct (they were kinda tough), Kena was the first reader to get 9 out of the 10 questions, and so won our first-ever blog contest.

Many thanks to all who entered the competition - it was great fun to read your submissions. If you want to see all the answers, you can read them here.

We hope you enjoyed the quiz. If you wanna see more quizzes, let us know by posting a comment below. I’m thinking about putting together a quiz for A Christmas Carol, maybe even before the show opens (for those of you who see it every year).

Posted by Adam Immerwahr, Producing Associate at McCarter Theatre